When I right-click on a photo in the My Pictures folder and select ‘Send To’ > ‘Mail Recipient’ a window appears asking me to select a profile. I have tried selecting the default Outlook Express profile and a particular email address, but I have no luck in getting the photo to send by email. I tried this procedure on another computer, and as soon as I click ‘Mail Recipient’ the photo is automatically attached to an email and ready to send. A second issue is when I try to view a photo email attachment in Outlook Express a message appears saying the computer is unable to view the photo (which is in JPEG format). If I save the photo to My Pictures I am able to view the photo. Why can’t this happen directly through Outlook Express? The computer is running Windows XP.

From your description of the problem, it seems there are multiple Outlook Express identities configured. For readers who are not aware of this feature, Outlook Express allows multiple ‘identities’ (or profiles). Each identity has their own mail account configuration and mail folder structure, allowing you to completely separate multiple accounts. This is useful if multiple people use the computer, each with their own email account, as each user can have their own identity. You can switch between identities by going to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Switch Identities’.

Getting back to your question, if you have multiple identities configured then, when you attempt to send a photo using the ‘Mail Recipient’ feature, Outlook Express does not know which identity you wish to use to send the email message, and thus prompts you to select an identity. That said, it is strange that after you have selected a profile Outlook Express still does not allow you to send the photo. However, there are some procedures we can try. There is an option allowing you to configure which Outlook Express identity to open and use by default. So, we should first check this setting. Before doing so, you will need to identify which identity you are primarily use. Go to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Switch Identity’ and the ‘Current identity’ should be displayed in this window. Once you have identified the identity which you are currently using, go to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Identities’ > ‘Manage Identities’. Tick the box ‘Use this identity when starting a program’ and select the identity you are currently using from the drop-down box. Next, for the option ‘Use this identity when a program cannot ask you to choose an identity’ also select the identity you are currently using from the drop-down box. Once you are finished, click the ‘Close’ button. Now, try sending a photo as an email to see whether the problem has been resolved. Hopefully, you should no longer be prompted to select an identity/profile, but the defaults we just configured should automatically be used.

Should you still be prompted to select a profile, we can try removing all profiles except the one you use. Of course, this will only work if you have no use for the other profiles. In your question you did not mention any of these other profiles are being used, so perhaps they have been accidentally created. However, to make double sure they are not used I strongly suggest you switch to each profile and check their contents to make sure nothing will be removed that is vitally important. You can switch profiles by going to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Switch Identity’. Once you have checked the other profiles and verified they are no longer required, you can delete these profiles. First, switch back to the identity you wish to keep (this is necessary because you cannot delete an identity which you are currently using). Then, go to the ‘File’ menu > ‘Identities’ > ‘Manage Identities’. Highlight the identity you wish to delete, and click ‘Remove’. Be very careful you only remove the identities you don’t use - this procedure will delete all email in the identities you remove! In the confirmation box click ‘Delete’ if you wish to continue. The identity should now be removed. Repeat this procedure for all the identities you wish to remove. At the end, you should only be left with one identity. Once this has been done, click ‘Close’. Now try sending a photo as an email. This should work without problem, since you no longer have any other identities so the box to select an identity should no longer appear.

Regarding your second question about being unable to view photos attached to an email message, from the description it seems the error message may be coming from the program being used to view the photo. As you are able to correctly open the photo through My Pictures, this indicates the file association for JPEG photos is correct and can be opened. This should not be any different for Outlook Express, since Outlook Express uses the Windows file associations to determine which program should be used to open a particular file format. Therefore, the most likely explanation is the photo viewing application being used to view the photos is having difficulty opening the photo, probably due to the location of the photo. When you open an email attachment, the attachment is copied into a temporary folder on the computer (e.g. C:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsTemporary Internet FilesContent.IE5DRWJTHD9) allowing the file to be opened. Some programs may not like this path, given that this is a hidden directory and the directory contains a period (.) symbol. However, when you save the photo to the My Pictures directory it opens correctly, since this uses a more conventional file path.

Given this scenario, there are two options you have. First, continue to save the pictures to My Pictures before attempting to open the photos. Second, if you are using a third-party (i.e. not Windows) viewer to open the photos then you could change the default viewer back to the default Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, which should be able to open the images without problem. However, this will globally change the setting so all JPEG images will open using this program by default. Should you wish to proceed, go into your My Pictures folder and find a JPEG photo. Right-click on the photo and select ‘Open With’ > ‘Choose Program’. Select ‘Windows Picture and Fax Viewer’ then tick ‘Always use the selected program to open this kind of file’ and click OK. Now, whenever you open a JPEG image directly, or through Outlook Express, it should open successfully using the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.